7 Ways Video Transcripts & Captions Improve SEO

Here are seven ways your video transcript and closed captions can help you climb up in search results.

1. Video Transcripts Increase Search Traffic

Transcripts are a textual representation of the spoken content in video and audio files. Search engines can’t watch a video or listen to audio, but they do index text. A transcript enables search engines to ingest your multimedia content and index it accordingly.

Consider the SEO structure of a news article. It has a title, byline, and body of text — all of which get indexed by Google. A video has a title and maybe a description, but the content remains invisible to search bots.
The simplest way to fix this is by placing a transcript on your video page that Google can crawl.

How do we know this works?

One study by Liveclicker compared 37 web pages before and after adding transcripts. Pages with transcripts earned on average 16% more revenue than they did before transcripts were added.

2. Closed Captioned Videos Rank Higher in Search Results

Adding closed captions is another proven way to make your videos searchable.

Unlike the other content in your video, closed captions come from a text file that your video references as it plays. That text file is readable by search engine bots.

Note

While closed captions are indexible, there is no SEO benefit to adding open captions to video.

Open captions are encoded into the video file and therefore are not accessible to search bots.

If search engines can read closed captions, do they index them and weight them in search results?

Yes, they do.

Discovery Digital Networks (DDN) performed an experiment on their YouTube channel, comparing videos with and without closed captions added. They found that captioned videos enjoyed 7.32% more views on average.

In that same experiment, DDN proved that the closed captions were indexed by search bots. They tested this by querying a string that appeared nowhere in the video title, description, or metadata except for its captions. The video showed up fourth in search results on YouTube.

A study by PLYMedia (unaffiliated with 3Play Media) measured an increase in 40% for views of captioned videos. They also found that viewers were 80% more likely to watch a video to completion when closed captions were available.

5. Video Transcripts Align Your SEO Keyword Strategy

A video transcript can help you craft your SEO strategy when building each video page.

For example, if you are targeting the keywords “customized marketing logos” but “custom-made, artistic logos” is repeatedly spoken throughout the video, you should adjust your on-page video SEO elements to match this phrasing.

There are tools available to quickly analyze a transcript for prominent keywords, such as 3Play Media’s Toggle Keywords view.

This makes it easy to scan a video to quickly get a sense of the topic.

6. Transcripts Make Content Creation Easy

Once you transcribe your video, you can easily repurpose the text transcript for more content creation. Since quality content is the basis of any good SEO strategy, any way to make content creation simpler is a bonus.

Here are just a few ideas for how to milk your video transcripts for all their SEO juice:

Write a blog post summarizing key take-aways from the video

Publish an e-book that synthesizes key findings from several related videos

Lift quotes from your video transcript to create shareable graphics

Compile data and statistics mentioned in your video to make an infographic

7. Transcripts and Captions Improve UX

Providing a video transcript is a reliable way to improve user experience on your site. Think of all the ways that a transcript makes someone’s life easier:

A student watching a video lecture can use the transcript as a study guide

A journalist can report on recorded events, lift direct quotes, and ensure correct spelling of proper names

A researcher can quickly find information on a specific topic even if it’s buried within hours of footage

These are just a few examples of how transcripts can be indispensable in creating a great UX.

A big part of optimizing UX is making your content fully accessible to everyone.

A transcript makes audio content accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and closed captions vastly improve the video viewing experience for the same reason.

There are millions of deaf or hard of hearing people in the world for whom transcripts and captions are essential in making their multimedia experience worthwhile.

By providing equal access to your content, you’re broadening the number of people who will find and enjoy your video. That counts for a whole lot more than just SEO, and inclusive design is rewarded by search engines anyway, so it’s a win-win.

This post was originally published on March 1, 2013 by Shannon Murphy under the title “Video SEO Series: 7 Key Benefits of Web Video Transcripts & Captions.” It has since been updated.

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